


Boys Keep Swinging

by Anonymous



Category: Roswell New Mexico (TV 2019)
Genre: 1x10 coda, Episode Tag, M/M, Malex, Sibling Time, discussion of other relationships, teachable moments
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2019-03-29
Updated: 2019-03-29
Packaged: 2019-12-26 08:35:51
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,716
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/18279641
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/
Summary: An extension of Michael and Isobel's conversation in 1x10. Michael welcomes Isobel to the party. Isobel wrestles with her flashbacks. Inevitably, Michael reveals more than he means to.





	Boys Keep Swinging

**Author's Note:**

> When Isobel told Michael she needed to know more, I initially thought she was referring to the Bisexual Alien Blast. This is a version of the conversation I wish had taken place between them before Isobel drank the antidote. I wanted to explore the ramifications of the romantic attachments they've both 'fessed up to, while keeping in mind something might be very "off" about Isobel's feelings for Rosa (per the very end of the episode).

Not in his wildest, most extraterrestrial dreams could Michael have imagined he would be having this conversation with _Isobel_ , of all people. But with so many lies and secrets streaming out into the open these days, he couldn’t even muster surprise. “Welcome to the party,” he said laconically, tipping his beer in her direction. “It’s a real bisexual alien blast around here.”

She choked on a laugh. But: “I need to know more,” she said, the old tenacity glinting in her eyes. Yep, Isobel was definitely feeling better. He braced himself. “I’m starting to realize I don’t know you as well as I thought I did.”

“Yeah.” He scrubbed a hand over his face, suddenly drained of energy. The conversation with Alex had left him flayed open. Exposed. He felt like one of those daleks from _Doctor Who_ , opening up the metal chamber of his heart to reveal the pathetic little alien inside. And Alex had backed away, stammering about needing more time. Michael couldn’t blame him, honestly.

“Michael?”

“Alex Manes,” he rasped, and told her.

Isobel looked thoughtful when he had finished. “So, Alex, you _love_ —” she began, but Michael cut in.

“I loved him, yeah.” Hitting the _d_ hard. Because that was where Alex had put him, in the past tense. A savage little consonant of retaliation.

“Is Alex the only person you’ve ever been in love with?”

Christ, but Isobel wasn’t making this easy for him. Trampling all over his poor little dalek. “Yes.”

“I don’t think I was in love with Rosa,” Isobel said, and for once Michael was glad for her ability to bring everything back to herself. “Not like Noah. But I _wanted_ her—God, the want is so powerful in the memories, like this _force_ had taken possession of me.”

Michael sipped his beer. He knew what she meant. Seated across from Alex, separated by the fire pit, every molecule in his body had been singing with desperation, desire, _hope—_

“You feel that for Alex?” Isobel pressed, and he grimaced, wishing she’d take the hint and get her grammatical tenses sorted. _Felt_ , not _feel._

“It wasn’t platonic, if that’s what you mean,” he replied shortly.

“But you’re genuinely attracted to women—”

“That’s kinda like the definition of _bisexual_ , Iz—”

“Because Max said you and _Maria_ just—”

“A one-off, probably—”

“In the _desert_! Like with sand and scorpions and—”

“Isobel!” He raised his voice. “I’m happy, really fucking happy, that Liz re-hatched you, but this little heart-to-heart isn’t—”

Isobel reached out and grasped his hand, the mangled one. She turned it over in both of hers, running gentle fingers over the ill-set bones. “I’m sorry I never knew how this happened,” she said. “I didn’t realize… how self-absorbed I was back then. You were supposed to go to college, Michael, and I made you stay…”

Tears. Hers, not his. He’d spent hours looking at Alex through a salty haze, and Alex’s eyes had glistened the whole time, too. But neither of them shed a single tear. Now he felt like his waterworks had been switched off for good. He managed not to wince as Isobel squeezed his hand too tightly.

“It was my fault you stayed in Roswell, and I watched you destroy your life without lifting a finger—”

“You let me use your hot water,” he pointed out. “Isobel, I fucked up my own life, and believe it or not, it wasn’t all about you.”

“Alex, then.” She was quick, even waterlogged and fresh-hatched. “Alex left.”

“Yeah,” he said heavily. “Alex left.”

“Is he the only guy you’ve ever—”

“We are not doing this again.” He reclaimed his hand. “Conversation closed.”

“I’m just trying to understand. Being _bisexual_.” Isobel tried the word out carefully. “Because, unless there are more memories I’ve suppressed, I’m pretty sure Rosa is the only girl I’ve ever wanted—in _that way._ ”

“Yeah, so?” He shrugged.

“So maybe it was a fluke, like some random teenage thing, hormones, or…”

“There’s no one way to be, Iz.” Michael was ready to retreat into his bunker and never speak to another living soul again. He fucking hated teachable moments. “No quota.”

“Do you think Alex was a fluke?”

He _could_ forcibly eject her from the airstream with his mind, but that seemed like a shitty thing to do to a sister he’d almost lost forever.

“I’ve fucked some other dudes. Okay?” His bottle was empty, so he took the beer out of her hand and swigged it back. Hurricane Guerin, oncoming. “But it’s not like, ‘Oh, I’m really in the mood for pussy tonight’ or ‘Gee, I could do with some dick action later, time to go cruising.’ No, it’s just like… if there’s an attraction there, I go for it, cause I’m attracted to the person, and what they have, what goes where, it’s kind of an afterthought, I guess.” He’d never had to articulate any of this before, and he could feel his cheeks burning. The second bottle was empty and he thought wistfully of his acetone stash, two bottles in the cabinet and a dozen more underground. But Isobel would tell him he had a problem, he needed help, so yeah, he’d just go and check himself into Acetonics Anonymous and start a twelve-step program—

“What about Alex?”

“What about him?” Fuck it, he was breaking the acetone out anyway. He was too sober for this, too sober to be alive right now. Michael stood up.

“If he was the first boy—”

“Yeah?”

“And you’d already been sleeping with girls—”

“ _Yeah_?” He gulped down half the bottle.

“You didn’t even think twice, that you were attracted to a guy?”

“For like twenty-four hours, maybe.” Alex had leaned in, staring at his lips, and Michael had leaned in, too, for one tantalizing moment, until his stomach swooped and he turned back to the borrowed guitar. “But what really did me in was how much I liked him, cause I wasn’t used to liking anybody who wasn’t you and Max.” The plastic bottle was empty, but the yawning ache in his chest hadn’t subsided.

“Oh, Michael.”

Isobel was coming towards him, arms outstretched, and he held up his hands to fend her off. “Iz, don’t. Please.” He’d disintegrate under her pity—okay, _love_ —right now. Isobel loved fiercely, and all that sunlight and heat would scorch the miserable dalek tentacles waving feebly from his chest cavity.

They looked at each other. Isobel must have seen something in his eyes, because she backed down. Lowered her hands. “I didn’t feel anything like that for Rosa,” she said, and he let out the breath he was holding. Safer territory. He’d never been more grateful for the narcissism of Isobel Evans-Bracken. What a blessing it had survived her second incubation period.

“That’s fine,” he told her. “Sometimes it’s just sex. No feelings attached.”

“I just—” Isobel shook her head. “It’s like there’s a wrinkle in the memories, something I can’t make sense of, with Rosa. What I felt about her.”

“This is just the beginning of your journey,” Michael informed her, grasping at a flimsy shred of his old swagger. “Sometimes you gotta really feel out the contours of your closet—your double walk-in closet, I mean—and take your time. That way you won’t trip on your way out.”

“Asshole,” Isobel said, but it was fond. “This conversation is _far_ from over, now that I have to, like, reevaluate your entire sexual history. Your preferences! Like when you said it was an afterthought, _what went where_ , does that mean you and Alex—”

“Good _bye_ Isobel,” he sang out, opening the airstream door with his mind. “Sorry you have to leave now, I’ve just remembered how busy I am.”

“There’s a whole new side to you that I’m only just discovering! Can you blame me for being nosy?”

“Uh, _yeah,_ I can.”

“This will bring us closer, Michael!”

“I really hope it doesn’t.”

“And now that I know my brother is having it, there’s so much I have to learn about _gay sex—_ ”

“Please, just call it sex—”

“It’s a brave new bisexual world—”

“I’m about to puke, I swear—”

“You’re no fun at all _._ ” Then she frowned suddenly. “I wish I could remember—it just doesn’t make _sense_ , with Rosa, the way we… I need to know more.” She looked at him, eyes gleaming with complicity. “So please tell me I know you as well as I think I do.”

She did. In this way, at least. “I swiped it yesterday,” Michael said, holding up a vial of serum.

Isobel gasped in mock horror. “You little street rat!”

“Hey, look, Liz isn’t so bad, but I don’t trust anyone. If she’s got an alien poison, I’m gonna squirrel away the antidote.”

“I knew you’d steal some,” she said, and snatched it out of his hand. He watched in mild alarm as she tossed back more than half of the tiny bottle.

“This is all we have left—” But he’d have done the same in her place, honestly. What he couldn’t understand was why she wanted to go home to _Noah._ “Let me get this _straight_ ,” he emphasized. “You want to go home to your human _husband_ while an experimental alien death-serum antidote triggers repressed murder memories of your former _girl_ crush?”

“He loves me,” Isobel said brightly, and Michael ached desperately for that confidence, that certainty. _He loves me, he loves me, he loves me—_

He hugged her tight and she clung back. “You love him,” she whispered. “I can feel it, how much you love him.”

He thought he might shatter if he tried to correct the tense one more time. _Loved him._ “Don’t worry about me,” he whispered back. “You know I always come up swinging.” Isobel was warm and solid in his arms, she _smelled_ like Isobel, and she was alive. “Fuck,” he said, not bothering to hide how thick his voice had become. “I really missed you.” Isobel shuddered against him. It was almost too much and he thought he was going to cry for real, finally release that pent-up howl of misery that had been building inside him for months—…

But then Isobel was drawing away, sarcastic and laughing, making fun of his hair, and that, that was all right too, for now.

 

**Author's Note:**

> Thank you so much for reading! 
> 
> If you enjoyed this one, my other story here for RNM is called HALLO SPACEBOY. It features significantly more Michael/Alex interaction, which I know is sadly lacking in this shorter piece.


End file.
